Government to put all railway companies under concession- DRC
This government plan looks like a headlong rush given that all of the DRC’s railway companies are in tatters.
The Minister of Portfolio, Clément Kuete, presented to the Council of Ministers on Friday, October 16 a “Draft Collaboration Agreement on the concessioning of railway infrastructures and the operation of the railway activity in the Democratic Republic of Congo” .
This project was previously analyzed by a technical commission under the chairmanship of the Executive Secretary of COPIREP (Steering Committee for the Reform of Public Enterprises) and composed of experts from the Presidency of the Republic, the Ministry of Portfolio, the Council. Superior of the Portfolio (CSP) and COPIREP.
“The Commission prepared the draft contract to be presented, together with its analysis report for the said project. This was also examined by the representatives of the public railway companies concerned, namely SCFUF SA, SCTP SA and SNCC SA, as well as with the representative of the partner CRD AG. The purpose of this collaboration is to set the general framework of the Project and to define the respective rights and obligations of the Concession Authority and of the Concession Company whose mission will be to ensure the design, financing, modernization, construction, operation and maintenance of an integrated rail network of 10,000 (ten thousand) km in the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as the realization of related projects ”,reports the report of the Council of Ministers presented by the spokesman of the government, Jolino Makelele.
After discussion and deliberation, in the report, the draft agreement was adopted “subject to the respect by the concessionaire of the binding conditions precedent introduced therein, in particular in terms of deadlines, and which are considered as a prerequisite before the entry into force of said agreement ”.
It should be noted that all the major public railway companies in the DRC are in a state of virtual bankruptcy, with significant social debt, obsolete infrastructure, not to mention the defective state of the railways. The recovery by COPIREP of these companies, in particular the SNCC and the SCTP, has never borne fruit. Consequently, this new Draft Convention risks not bearing fruit as expected given that these companies must first be brought up to the required standards before thinking about their development.
